Saturday, February 12

Story Saturday: Part One of the Zompocalypse

This story is based on a comic my brother O'Malley and I wrote and I illustrated (with stick figures) I've had to adapt it a bit by O'Malley still gets a lot of credit for this. Also, this is only the first part. Expect the second part next week.

No one expected it, no one saw it coming, some had tried to fight it, fight them, but they had failed. Small bands of survivors roamed the Earth, fighting for food, fighting for shelter, fighting to survive.

A rag-tag band of survivors nervously scurried down the street. The leader of the group, a young man, turned back to his two companions and waved for them to hurry up, “Come on guys, we have to at least check.” His name was Tom and it was only luck that he and his companions, Pieman and Lara Lou had survived.

“This is O’Malley we’re talking about.” Pieman shook her head. “What are the chances of him surviving when he’s always passed put on the floor?”

Lara agreed with Pieman, “I don’t like this. What if he’s infected?”

Tom didn’t respond. They had come to a stop outside a dilapidated house, with smashed windows, burnt out car bodies in the driveway, a lawn with grass that could reach a man’s shoulder and the roof falling in. “This is it.” Tom nodded towards the house.”

“It looks like the zombies got here before us.” Lara bit her lip.

“No... This is how it always is.” Tom approached the front door cautiously, knocked nervously, and waited anxiously.

“No one home?” Pieman asked.

“Come on, let’s get out of here.” Lara was uneasy. “We’ll check on Penguins. And then Donut,” she added, “We should check on him too. Does anyone know where he is?”

Pieman’s face went dark and far away thunder crashed. “No. No one knows where Donut is.”

Tom wasn’t paying any attention to their conversation. He turned the doorhandle, finding it unlocked, and went inside. Lara looked apprehensively between the open door and the empty street. The sounds of soft groans could be heard in the distance. Pieman put a hand on Lara’s shoulder. “It’s safer inside then out.”

Loud metalcore blasted as O’Malley discharged a round of machine gun fire at a group of zombies. “Die zombies! Die!” O’Malley grabbed out duel Uzis and blasted a group of zombies, achieving headshots each time.A zombie lunged out to bite O’Malley, only to receive a grenade in its mouth. “You just got pwnd!” O’Malley shouted as the zombie exploded. He emptied his akimbo glocks into even more zombies before resorting to his katana, decapitating zombies left and right.

Tom, Pieman and Lara stared at O’Malley in disbelief. He was sitting on his living room floor playing a video game. The floor around him was littered in empty bottles of beer, vodka, whisky, and even one bottle of mentholated spirits. “Boom! Headshot!” O’Malley cried.

“Uh… O’Malley?” Tom caught O’Malley’s attention.

“Oh, hey guys!” O’Malley replied without looking up from his game, “You’re just in time to see me pwn some Z Heads! What’s up anyways? It’s strange for you all to drop by.”

There was more staring in disbelief. “Uh…” Lara wasn’t entirely sure what to say, “Have you been outside... uh... at all... in like... three weeks?”

“Um... sure. I went outside, uh... ROCKET WHORE! When was comic-con on again?” O’Malley replied, distracted by his game.

“That was last June!”

“Yeah, then.”

“It’s February”

The door swung open dramatically and the group sprung to their feet, ready for some action. Instead their friend, Penguins, stepped through the doorway. “Sweet Merciful Crap!” she cried, “What the hell is going on outside?”

“At least someone has noticed.” Lara said to Pieman, dryly.

“How long has it been since you mowed your lawn!” Penguins asked and Lara facepalmed.

Tom was beginning to wonder how he had such stupid and ignorant friends. “Listen for a minute!” He said, exasperated, “Outside zom-“

O’Malley jumped to his feet, so excited he forgot to pause his game. “Quick! We need to initiate zombie contingency plan 11.5 Beta 3.0. I’ll start by assigning roles.” O’Malley straightened his shirt in a way that he thought made him look professional. “Lara, you’ll be Helpless Female. Penguins you’ll be-“

“Final Girl!” Penguins cheered.

“Pfft.” O’Malley dismissed the idea, “You’re the helpless female who dies at the beginning. You can die in a shower scene.”

“Hey-“ Penguins tried to protest.

“As for me,” O’Malley continued “I’ll be the super leet hacker zombie expert. And if Left for Dead taught me anything it’s that groups must be made up of four main characters.”

“... But there are five of us...”

O’Malley withdrew a shotgun and pointed it at Tom, his eyes dead serious. “Four. Main. Characters.”

Lara hit O’Malley over the back of the head. “Put that away.”

"What are the prerequisites for this four man team?” Tom muttered. “That you be f@#%ing insane?"

O’Malley apologised and lowered the gun. “Well, if we’re going to have more than four people we’re going to need to do it. We’ve got to…” O’Malley paused dramatically, “Defrost Donut.”

“No way! It’s too soon!” Pieman was horrified. “Are you insane?”

“Sanity is for the weak!” O’Malley cried. “It is the only way!” He walked over to a picture hanging on the wall and he took it down to reveal a wall safe. Opening the safe, he typed a thirteen digit code into a number pad, causing the wall to slide apart revealing a high tech laboratory. O’Malley cut his hand with a knife and a let a drop of blood fall onto a platen. There was a whir and a cryogenic chamber housing Willy rose from the laboratory floor.

“Weird…” Lara breathed.

The glass door of the chamber defrosted and the door opened. Donut jumped out “WATZAAAP!!!”

“Yo! How you been?” O’Malley greeted the defrosted youth only to receive an icy glare in response.

“You froze me. For six months. Against my will. Upside down.”

“Oh, right…”

“Without pants.”

Pieman frowned. “Actually you had pants when we froze you.”

There was an awkward silence which, eventually, O’Malley broke. “Um… Will can be comic relief guy! You get to die half way through!”

Tom rolled his eyes. “O’Malley you’re being stupid. Can you cut the crap?”

“Jerk!” O’Malley declared, “You die after comic relief!”

“How is this going to help?” Pieman agreed with Tom.

“Pessimist! Dies next!” O’Malley finished assigning roles. “Okay, now onto phase two of preparation, but first, something to drink.” He looked through the bottles lying on the floor and, after finding them all empty, raided the liquor cabinet.

Lara used this opportunity of silence from O’Malley to say something. “Donut, I realize we are in the midst of a zompocalypse and that we will inevitably face a battle of world ending proportions and that our rag-tag band of plucky survivors must stand against the undead hordes as humanities last chance of salvation, and that at any moment any one of us could be killed... but for the love of god, put some pants on!”

“I miss my pants. They were awesome.” Donut replied sadly.

“Whatever.” O’Malley uncapped a gin bottle and waved off their unnecessary commentary. “Now to pick our kits;” He took a swig straight from the bottle, “Pieman, you get a machete and a 12 gauge shotgun. Girls, you both get a simple pistol which you should drop when danger comes approaching, silly helpless females.”

“Can we at least get baseball bats?” Penguins asked.

“Girls can’t play baseball.” O’Malley replied.

Lara rolled her eyed. “I’m not even going to begin on how sexist this is becoming...”

“I may not be able to hit a baseball,” Penguins replied, but I sure can hit other balls.” O’Malley didn’t seem certain of what she was implying so Penguins kicked Donut in the balls to demonstrate.

“She only hurts me ‘cause she loves me!” Donut cried, his eyes full of tears.

“Oh! Oh my! You- You can have your bats!” O’Malley gawped at Donut. “Please don’t hurt me. Jerkface can have a flamethrower.”

“Flamethrowers are illegal.” Lara informed him.

“Ugh! The geneva convention ruined warfare! They banned all the fun weapons.” He complained. “Fine, you can have a shotty too. I’ll get a heavy bolter, hunting shotgun, numerous vials of the antidote and of course the infamous Zombie Killing Machine 2000. Donut, you can have the autoshotgun, AKA the noob cannon,” He looked at Donut withering on the ground, “because you’re going to need it.” O’Malley went on to explain what the plan was.

There was a stunned pause after O’Malley had finished his briefing. Everyone stared at him in disbelief. Tom spoke first, choosing his words carefully in order not to offend O’Malley. “I’d have to check, but by my estimate, the number of helicopter gunships we have may be as few as zero.”

“Only an insane person would be proud of that plan.” Lara said, less tactfully.

“I feel pretty proud...”

“Point proven.”

Suddenly the group because aware of the sounds of groaning and moaning outside. “The Zombies are attacking!” Pieman realised.

“What do we do? They’re breaking in!” Penguins panicked.

“Quick!” O’Malley took charge. “Penguins! Into the shower!”

“We need to escape while we can.” Tom thought it was better to finally take command away from O’Malley.

“O’Malley never runs from a fight!” O’Malley cried.

“Uh…” Lara grabbed him by the elbow and pulled him towards the back door. “We’re not running… We’re going to the, uh, next level. Yeah. The next level.”

“Next level!” O’Malley cheered, “What are we waiting for! Come on Donut, let’s go!”He grabbed his friend by the hand and they charge off into the sunset.

Hope you enjoyed part one of the Story Saturday zompocalypse. Part two next week.